Yun Xi saw Commandant Cao remove the sword he’d been holding at A’Jiu’s throat, and hurried forward to untie her.

Cheng Ye bowed to Cheng Chang and asked, “Since Your Highness is safe and well, shall we set out for the capital at once?”

Cheng Chang didn’t answer that. Instead he asked, “How many men does the Young Prince have here in Yangzhou?”

“Not many. Only fifty-six Yiwei Command guards.”

Cheng Chang nodded, then asked Prefect Liu, “How many officers does the Yangzhou prefectural office currently have?”

Prefect Liu said, “In answer to Your Highness, this official’s office has over three hundred officers in total.”

He thought for a moment, then asked earnestly, “Does Your Highness wish to deploy troops?” He hurried to offer a suggestion. “There’s a garrison stationed near Yangzhou, with several thousand soldiers there as well.”

Cheng Chang considered this briefly.

Chai Ping had brought two hundred patrol guards to Yangzhou. Cheng Ye now had over fifty men, and Prefect Liu had over three hundred more—that would be enough.

He turned his gaze to Chai Ping and said levelly, “There’s a matter I’d like to trouble the Young Prince and Prefect Liu with.”

“Your Highness need only give the order.”

“On the sixteenth of February last year, this prince went to the Imperial City Bureau, was pursued by villains to the end of the passage between the inner and outer bureaus, locked in a woodshed, and nearly burned to death! The villain responsible is none other than the current Vice Censor-in-Chief, Chai Ping. I order you to arrest this man at once!”

At these words, everyone present was stunned.

Setting a fire to burn a prince to death—what a shocking, earth-shattering crime this was.

Prefect Liu was so startled he shrank backward at once, falling utterly silent, like a quail trying to make itself small.

Cheng Ye hesitated, then asked, “Does Your Highness speak truly?”

Before Cheng Chang could answer, he weighed it once more, then glanced behind him.

The two Yiwei Command guards behind him understood at once, stepped forward, and bowed to Chai Ping. “Our apologies, Lord Chai.”

But before the two of them could act, Commandant Cao stepped in front of Chai Ping and asked, “Could Your Highness be mistaken? When the Imperial City Bureau caught fire last year, Your Highness was trapped in the woodshed, and it was Lord Chai who led men to rescue you. Many of Lord Chai’s men died that day, and Lord Chai himself was injured on the arm—a wound that still hasn’t fully healed.”

“Is that so?” Cheng Chang asked coldly.

“If Your Highness doesn’t believe it, you’re welcome to examine Lord Chai’s injured arm.”

With that, he moved to have Chai Ping roll up his sleeve to prove it himself.

Chai Ping shook his head, sighing even as he rolled up his sleeve. “In truth, it makes no difference if Your Highness doesn’t remember. This official went to save you purely to protect your life—as long as Your Highness stands here safe and unharmed now, this official’s sacrifice back then wasn’t in vain, and the truth speaks for itself.”

A large patch of flesh on his arm was mangled and twisted, some parts already healed, others still red, swollen, and raw—a sight that made anyone wince to look at.

Yet Cheng Chang, seeing the wound, remained entirely unmoved, and said coolly, “Isn’t that wound from when you locked me in the woodshed, and worried that if anyone saw the bronze lock, they might suspect you’d harmed me—so you got burned retrieving the lock afterward?”

He stepped closer as he spoke, leaned in beside Chai Ping’s ear, and said with a low laugh, “What’s this? It seems all the men who followed Lord Chai that day are dead? So it appears the raging fire carried on my unfulfilled will and avenged me on its own?”

His voice was low, drifting, cool—and it struck Chai Ping’s ear with a chill that ran straight through him.

He couldn’t help but stumble back a step, staring at Cheng Chang in shock.

What did he mean by… “unfulfilled will”?

Was he… already dead?

Then where, exactly, had he come from just now?

Chai Ping was thoroughly unnerved. For a moment he recalled how, at first glimpse, Cheng Chang in his white robes had looked like some spectral figure risen from the underworld.

Cheng Chang, no longer bothering with Chai Ping, turned to the hesitating guards around him, his voice suddenly dropping cold and heavy. “This prince is, after all, the heir of Prince Cong’s household, direct blood of Emperor Renzong himself! What does it matter if the man is Vice Censor-in-Chief? What does it matter if he’s a fourth-rank imperial envoy? Anyone who dares lay a hand on this prince commits a crime equal to treason!”

“Seize him, now!”

“Yes!” The Yiwei Command guards no longer dared hesitate. They stepped forward, pinned Chai Ping’s arms behind his back, and bound him at once.

It was already past noon. Cheng Chang thought it over carefully—just from the way Chai Ping had thrown his weight around like a fox borrowing the tiger’s authority, it was clear how much power Prince Ling now held at court. There was no telling whether Prince Ling had eyes and ears within Yangzhou itself. If he simply returned to the capital as he was, and ran into an ambush set by Prince Ling, even with Cheng Ye and his Yiwei Command guards protecting him, they might well not be a match for it.

So the only way was to make sure everyone in Jinling knew he was in Yangzhou, and have Wei Jie or Xuan Zhi come openly with guards to escort him back—only then could he return to Jinling safely.

With this in mind, Cheng Chang said to Cheng Ye, “I’d trouble the Young Prince to send someone on a fast horse with word to the Da Sui palace, saying I’m here in Yangzhou, and asking them to send someone to fetch me tomorrow.”

Cheng Ye said, “Understood.”

Cheng Chang then said to Prefect Liu, “The Feng father and son who run the silk shop at the foot of the mountain have looked after me this past year—they’re the ones I owe my life to. I’d ask Prefect Liu to see them safely home first, and tell them to come see me first thing tomorrow morning. Send soldiers to escort them along the way.”

“Yes, yes,” Prefect Liu answered at once. “Of course, of course.”

A’Jiu’s injuries were not light. Once Cheng Chang had finished settling these matters, he wasted no more time and returned with Yun Xi’s group to the Yangzhou prefectural office.

Chai Ping was, after all, the Vice Censor-in-Chief, so once back at the office, Prefect Liu didn’t dare lock him in the regular jail, instead sectioning off a separate courtyard and ordering officers to guard him closely.

Learning of this, Cheng Chang didn’t pay it much mind.

There was still plenty of time—he had no shortage of ways to make Chai Ping pay in blood for what he’d done.

Having learned his lesson from the incident at the eastern coast, Prefect Liu knew the Third Young Master didn’t think much of him. After attending on him cautiously for a while, he found an excuse to slip away, not wanting to overstay his welcome.

Cheng Chang, exhausted from the day, rested for a short while, and seeing the sun already sinking westward, went to find Yun Xi at her courtyard. At the courtyard gate, the guard on duty said, “Reporting to Your Highness, the General hasn’t returned yet—she’s still at the side courtyard with the healer, tending to Guard Qin.”

Cheng Chang made a soft sound and, following the direction the guard pointed, made his way to the side courtyard.

Dusk had only just settled, the evening glow faint. A’Jiu’s knife wounds weren’t especially deep, but she’d lost a great deal of blood, and now that she’d been cleaned and medicated, she was utterly drained, holding on to the last of her strength while waiting for the healer to finish brewing medicine.

Yun Xi had taken A’Jiu’s soiled undergarments to wash in the courtyard.

She wasn’t much accustomed to rough chores—though the Marquis Zhongyong’s household had gone through hard times, there had always been someone to do the laundry for her.

So it was that the moment Cheng Chang arrived, he found her hanging clothes to dry in the courtyard.

He’d meant to go straight up and greet her, but his gaze caught on something at her back, and his steps came to an abrupt halt.

Below her right shoulder, her garment had torn open along a five- or six-inch gash, revealing a stretch of skin pale as silk.

At the end of that pale skin, there was a small red mark—too far to make out clearly, but likely a shallow cut.

Probably an injury from her fight at Changhui Mountain—light enough, and she’d been so worried about A’Jiu at the time that she hadn’t even noticed it.

A shaft of evening light poured down, and against her pale skin, that small trace of blood looked clear and vivid, almost startling to the eye—striking in a way she wasn’t aware of.

Cheng Chang froze for a moment, feeling that looking at her like this probably wasn’t quite proper, and turned his gaze away.

But before long, unable to help himself, he glanced back again.

Yun Xi, having finished hanging the clothes, caught sight of a slanted shadow cast before the courtyard gate in the fading sunlight and turned around. “Third Young Master?”

Cheng Chang made a quiet sound and asked, “Are you done here?”

Yun Xi glanced toward A’Jiu’s room—quiet inside, likely A’Jiu had fallen asleep after the healer fed her medicine—and nodded. “All done.”

Cheng Chang made another soft sound, then after a moment asked, “Do you have any wound medicine?”

“I do.” Yun Xi nodded, hurried into the room, and brought out a bottle, handing it to him with concern. “Is the Third Young Master hurt?”

Cheng Chang didn’t answer that, only said, “Come with me.”

He pushed open the door of a small side room nearby.

The room was tiny, likely meant for the healer to sleep in—just a table, a stool, and a narrow bamboo daybed.

Cheng Chang closed the door behind Yun Xi, was quiet for a moment, then said, “There’s a tear in the back of your garment.”

Hearing this, Yun Xi froze for a moment, then the tips of her ears flushed red at once. She pressed her back against the door and stood there, lowering her eyes and pressing her lips together, not knowing what to do.

Today she’d first been reunited with the Third Young Master, then rushed to save A’Jiu—she hadn’t even noticed her own injury, let alone that her garment had torn. Which meant the whole way back to the office…

Cheng Chang glanced at her, seeming to catch her thoughts, and said, “The tear in your clothes was probably small at first—not something you’d notice on the way back to the office. It likely widened just now while you were washing clothes.”

He added, “Come here.”

Yun Xi blinked. “For what?”

Cheng Chang sat down on the bamboo daybed. “I’ll tend to your wound.”

Yun Xi paused for a moment, her ears flushing even redder than before, and shook her head, eyes lowered. “No need. I’ll find someone else to tend to it later.”

“Find who?” Cheng Chang’s tone was flat. “A’Jiu is injured, and the healer needs to look after her. Besides those two, everyone else in this office is a man. Who exactly did you plan on troubling with this?”

He repeated, “Come here.”

Yun Xi had no choice but to turn her back to Cheng Chang and sit down on the bamboo daybed as well.

Now that she’d stopped moving, the dull ache beneath her right shoulder finally made itself felt. She was quiet for a moment, then loosened her collar slightly, revealing a small portion of her shoulder.

It was only then that Cheng Chang noticed—Yun Xi’s skin was naturally fair, though years spent braving wind and rain meant it wasn’t obvious just looking at her face. But the skin usually covered by clothing was simply as white as snow, more translucent even than snow itself.

Her shoulder, too, was beautifully shaped—slender and soft, her dark hair spilling down like black silk, and beneath it, that frost-pale, jade-smooth skin flickered in and out of view.

The legendary “fragrant shoulder of a beauty” must have looked something like this.

Cheng Chang said nothing, only reached up to lift her hair aside, brushing it forward, out of the way.

His cool fingertips traced lightly across the back of her neck, and Yun Xi’s face flushed hot at once, a wave of heat rushing straight to her chest, her mind buzzing loudly—so much so that as he applied the medicine, each touch felt like the light prick of a cold needle, faintly painful, yet somehow able to carve out something exquisite.

“There.” After a moment, Cheng Chang said.

Yun Xi made a soft sound and said, “Thank you, Third Young Master.” She turned to face him, meaning to put her garment back in order.

Cheng Chang stopped her, looking away. “The medicine hasn’t dried yet.”

The two of them sat there facing each other, neither looking at the other.

Mid-February weather, even with spring already returned, still carried a lingering chill come dusk. The door had been closed properly, but the high window had been left ajar a crack, and cool air seeped into the room through the gap.

Cheng Chang glanced around, saw a clean thin quilt lying on the bamboo daybed, picked it up, and leaned forward to drape it over her shoulders.

Yun Xi lifted her gaze slightly, landing on his jaw.

His jaw was beautifully shaped, its line clean and cool.

Following it upward, his lips were beautiful too, pressed together lightly, at once unrestrained and full of feeling.

Higher still, and she met his gaze.

He, too, was looking down at her.

The evening wind gusted with a heavy resonance, stirring the burning golden hues of dusk scattered across the ground into shifting, warm fragments of light.

His gaze was cool and distant, and yet it held within it a boundless tenderness.

Yun Xi felt as though she might drown in that gaze.

The pale skin of her shoulder was already hidden beneath the thin quilt, but clearer still than that skin were her eyes, and more vivid still, her lips.

The dusk was so quiet. Their eyes met, their heartbeats pounding like war drums, deafening.

Yun Xi could no longer even tell whose heartbeat it was—his or her own.

She reached out and gripped the edge of the bamboo daybed, watching him slowly draw closer.

Watching the bridge of his nose brush past the tip of hers, his cool breath washing over her.

Watching his eyes slowly close.

Dusk and evening wind took root in this narrow little room, about to grow into something as deep and vast as the sea.

But just at that moment, a knock suddenly sounded at the door outside.

Prefect Liu’s voice called out from beyond the door, both delighted and careful, “Your Highness? Third Young Master?”